Penny Royal Tea
by razzle-dazzle-me
Summary: It was just an instant later, when hazel eyes caught sight of Sirius half naked, shimmying down Lily's leg, that James decided heatedly it was time to stand his ground. Utterly!Pointless!Smut. JPLE PostHogwarts.


Summary: It was just an instant later, when hazel eyes caught sight of Sirius half naked, shimmying down Lily's leg, that James decided heatedly it was time to stand his ground. Utterly!Pointless!Smut. JP/LE Post-Hogwarts.

Disclaimer: I own zip.

WARNING: Contains Sex, Drugs and Stupid Pillocks. _Italics on emphasis, past tense or thoughts. _

**…Penny Royal Tea…**

A/N: Fact - Harry Potter was born on July 31st. Fact - exactly nine months prior to that date is October 31st. Coincidental? Maybe. Ironic? Definitely. Just a little bit morbid? Oh, you have no idea…

… … … Halloween, 1980.

It was that hideous, awful time of the year again; skeletons belly danced through Diagon Alley, pumpkins shone neon bright between frost bitten houses and chocolate coated bats rampaged Sirius Black's caroused apartment. James Potter, never one to be denied a good party, lay gloomy in low spirits, perched precariously between a rather drunk Remus and a very smelly Peter. He watched, bewildered and fascinated, as his best friend attempted the impossible before his very eyes: to shag everyone in the room with breasts before the nights end. His current target - a gushing newlywed Alice Longbottom, dressed audaciously as a fluffy purple dinosaur.

But no, don't get Sirius's judgement wrong - Alice made one very sexy prehistoric reptile.

And as James watched, left eye twitching and jagged nails biting through the glove of his hand, he couldn't help but realise how he felt just a little bit jealous. No longer a bachelor. No longer free.

"Five Galleons says he gets Clarissa Lockhart in the broom cupboard."

"Ten Galleons says Frank Longbottom hexes him within the next thirty seconds."

"Twenty galleons," James gagged, "says I die of toxic fume asphyxiation and consequent strangulation of the brain."

Peter frowned. "Why would that be?"

"Your bloody costume, that's what!" James grumbled, pegging two gloved fingers across the bridge of his pale painted nostrils.

Peter blushed, an embarrassing shade of fuchsia drowning out his fur patched cheeks. "It seemed a good idea at the time!" he piped up pathetically in his own defence.

James rolled his eyes. "Right. Cause everyone wants to sit next to fucking road-kill all night."

A loud resounding smack echoed above the thundering music - Frank Longbottom had extracted his revenge upon Sirius's head in a mighty sucker punch.

"Uhuh!" Remus cried dubiously, waggling an outstretched palm in front of James' face. "Pay up, Prongs! You owe me ten big ones!"

It was not James' night.

The day had started full of promise, bright with prospects and coffee scented comfort. But then it had begun to rain and pour and thunder, shifting the days events to an inevitably doomed disaster in a matter of raindrops. Lily had PMS, denying him a morning of slow indulgent lovemaking and a steaming communal shower, as his falsifying dreams had insisted would happen, in stake of a rude awakening and the accompanying snappy nags.

That morning reached a hallmark: it was the longest time in the couple's married life they had forgone sex.

And the day had only gotten worse from there, as the clouds broke and lightening cracked familiar normality. James was late to work. He spilt beetroot down his favourite grey robes at lunchtime. He accidentally broke the news to the wrong family of their Uncle's death. Only when he thought it couldn't get any worse, whilst rummaging through a stack of reports on bottomless cauldrons, had James disturbed a misplaced and badly sealed bag of illegal unicorn dust, inhaling it deeply. It was when he had tried to dance the tango with Alastor "Mad Eye" Moody, high on the substance and without any control or memory of what he did, that James had been sent home early from work to recover. He had been told, rather harshly James thought, that he need not bother coming back.

James glared at the werewolf, who grinned back at him wolfishly through a pair of pink plastic glow-in-the-dark fangs.

"It was forty seconds," he insisted, hoping Remus had been too drunk to count. "And Frank didn't hex the pillock, he hit him!"

Remus considered this for a moment, James taking the opportunity to top up his near empty glass of firewhisky in hopes of diverting his friends attention. It worked, Remus drowning the liquid in one curiously large gulp - thoughts of bet's and dept's already forgotten.

It was just an instant later, when hazel eyes caught sight of Sirius half naked, shimmying down Lily's leg, that James decided heatedly it was time to stand his ground. Enough was enough!

"Oi! Padfoot!" he screamed, wriggling free of his position between Remus and Peter, standing and readjusting his afro wig.

Sirius haltered, black eye throbbing and a cardboard fire-engine held securely under his arm.

Costumes in consideration, it was John Travolta versus Michael Jackson.

"I'll fight ya for her!" Sirius shrieked back, pushing Lily into a horrified Professor McGonagall and circling James, holding the cardboard truck threateningly above his head.

James growled, leaping forward and tackling Sirius to the ground.

It took a well placed stunner - hitting Sirius square in the bottom - to break them apart a good ten minutes later.

Lily was not in the least bit impressed.

"He was threatening my manhood!" James asserted, tried to reason with the temperamental redhead. "Stealing my woman - it was my dignity at stake! You can't really expect," James continued begrudgingly, eyeing his best mate with utter loathing, "for me to sit back and watch that mangy mutt maul on you, Lily dearest?"

"Grow up, Potter!" Lily cried, throwing her hands into the air for emphasis, turning swiftly on her heal - and not without earning him a good look at her retreating tosh, raged off into the crowd of rowdy onlookers.

"You're positively evil, Evans!" James yelled after her.

"I hate you, Potter!"

James pretended not to have heard.

Returning to his position on the over stuffed sofa - now squished even more uncomfortably between not only Remus and Peter, but a stunned Sirius also, dangling haphazardly over the edge - James reflected on what had turned his day so afoul.

The only thing he could think of was the departmental absence of his usual morning sex.

Deciding this must be the cause, aided by twelve shots of who-knows-what and Remus' trusty advice of the only way to fix such a predicament ringing sound in his ear, James set about on a mission to rectify the situation, for better or for worse - to death do he part.

He found Lily, after such a short time searching that could only have been from the direct will and kindly justice of Merlin himself, holed up in the bathroom, reapplying her lipstick. _Brilliant._

"Are you having a good time?" Lily asked, eyes still locked on fussing her hair.

"Hmgff," James drooled back in reply.

"That's nice," Lily smiled, turning around slowly.

It was only then that she saw the can in his hand.

"Is that all you ever think about, honestly?" Lily asked him tersely.

James dropped the whipped cream, scandalised. "Of course!"

Lily glared. James huffed.

Then suddenly she was laughing, and James started laughing too, hoping to draw her into a more generous frame of mind. Fearing the worst - however much it seemed impossible that his day might plummet to a new low - James realised that he would have to act fast. _I Want Sex. I Need Sex. I Must. Have. Sex._

And sex he would get, no matter to the consequence.

Before Lily knew what had happened to her the door had clicked locked, her mouth was being violated and she was pinned up against the bathroom mirror, her bottom - covered tightly in her very finest Alice dress - was pressed down into the sticky wet sink.

"JAMESpp!"

The man in question paused, one hand unbuttoning his trousers and the other unclasping Lily's bra. James extradited his tongue quickly, swallowed, and placing the most charming smile he could muster upon his face, he replied meekly "yes, Lily dearest?"

Emerald green eyes narrowed, one copper eyebrow rising high.

James quivered, squeezing his eyes shut and waiting patiently for the blow.

"PMS, James," Lily hissed. "PMS."

_He'd have to work it._

James pouted, wrapping his arms securely around her waist. "I understand, darling. I know exactly what you're going through."

"No, you don't!"

"Of course I don't," James agreed, stroking her back.

Lily grumbled, reciprocating his embrace nonetheless.

Expertly James' hands wove patterns on her side, quietly unzipping her dress as he went, careful not to create suspicion. Gently he drew circles up her arms, his lips teasing hers and moving slowly down her neck in a trail of wet butterflies.

"James," Lily moaned, already a little short of breath, though this time her heart wasn't in it, and leisurely - taking as much from him as she could - Lily allowed James to get her hot and bothered.

It didn't take long.

Flustered, aroused, high on boos and thrilled by each other's touch, panties were quickly discarded and forgotten. James flicked his wand and the sink turned jelly soft, bouncing in rhythm to their sway. James' trousers fell about his knees.

Thrusted in, hard, and the pause - then rocking built up, fiction - fast, slow, faster, slower.

He swooned. He reached. He peaked.

And James knew - oh, how he _knew_ - that life had been righted again, back to where it should be, always. Perfect. And smiling gleefully to himself in the thought, he knew it couldn't have been better.

Awkward smiles and a little fumbled words, good timed caresses and a final moist parting gift, only then was the couple ready to brave the world again. Removing themselves from the bathroom - to no avail inconspicuously - and ignoring the ugly looks thrown their way by the aggregated cue, Lily and James blended quickly back into the party.

No-one ever told James his fly was undone, and most thought the thick white past smeared over Lily's face was meant to be there.

And, certainly, it never occurred to anyone to inform Harry how he had been conceived in a shifty bathroom romp.

James considered himself cured, even as he handed over twenty galleons each to Peter and Remus, not having died - a bet he would loose again willingly.

The black night sky turned to grey, the grey to dusk and dusk to a pretty pinky purple. A new day had arisen. Rain had dispersed, clouds moved on and the thunder halted, watching and waiting, a vindictive picture of the calm before a storm. For this tranquillity would not last. It was only late this next day, as James knelt on the floor of his old office before Mad Eye, kissing the hem of his robes and begging for his job back, that he remembered they'd forgotten to use contraception.

… … …

finis.

Love it? Hate it? Want me to continue? Yeah, I'm not quite above bribery - review and I'll consider it. xxoo


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